HOTEL TRAGEDY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 29 July 1941, Page 6

HOTEL TRAGEDY

INQUEST ON VALENTINE ROLFE f.\ hu m i or identification Auckland, This Day An mqut ♦ w , opened before the Cormier. Mr Hunt, this morning concern ng the death of Valentine Kenneth Walter Knife, aged 3<j. carpenter, who V. ; . found hut at the Cecil Private Hotel m the city ye terday afternoon. His wile Kathleen Josephine Kolfe. aged 36, : wa foutl with a bullet wound in her back, is in Auckland hospital in Evidence of identification was given at the inquest by Cleveland Knife, carpenter. who reside- at. the Cecil Private Hotel He aid he a t aw his brother alive about « month ago. The inquest was adjourned sine die. Valentine Kolfe. who resided in New North Road. Kmgsland. was married in February. 1940. but after three months together the couple separated. In October. 1940. Mrs Kolfe obtained a separation and maintenance order. Kolfe v a. in arrears with his maintenance to the extent of £36 to July last. On Thursday last a summons was issued for disobedience of the order, the hearing being fixed for sth August. Kolfe i was to have appeared with his wife [ye terday before a conciliator. Mrs j Kolfe appeared, but Kolfe did not apj pear. Mrs Kolfe. who has a son aged ■ 13 by a former marriage, resided in a ’ room in Vincent street, and her son I lived at the Cecil Private Hotel with his aunts and grandmother. Mrs Rolf* 1 paying lor her son’s keep. Kolfe called twice yesterday afternoon and was told j his wife was not at the hotel. As he was leaving he* saw her returning from work. They went upstairs together and entered a sitting j room on the first floor. Mrs McGrath, sister of Mrs Rolfe, told the police that on hearing the two shots and her sister's screams she rushed into j the room. Her sister was lying on her I back, her head toward the window and i her feet toward the door. She was writhing and screaming. Rolfe was So ' the floor in a sitting position, his back against an armchair and his head | thrown back. Her sister said before j losing consciousness. -He shot me in the heart.” While Mrs McGrath was using the telephone to call a doctor and , the police she saw blood rush from Rolfe's mouth and he apparently died at 1 that moment. A doctor arrived within ! a few minutes and found a bullet j wound near Knife’s left eye and a reI volver close to the body. Four spent I cartridges were in the room. ! A hospital examination revealed that 'his wife had a bullet wound in the j back of her left shoulder.—P.A. \ < Earlier message elsewhere in this